`MacGruber' tries to overcome stigma of SNL movies

In this film publicity image released by Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Will Forte, left, and Kristen Wiig are shown in a scene from "MacGruber." (AP Photo/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Greg Peters)
— AP

In this film publicity image released by Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Will Forte, left, and Kristen Wiig are shown in a scene from "MacGruber." (AP Photo/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Greg Peters)
/ AP

In this film publicity image released by Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Kristen Wiig, left, Will Forte, center, and Ryan Phillippe are shown in a scene from "MacGruber." (AP Photo/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Greg Peters)— AP

In this film publicity image released by Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Kristen Wiig, left, Will Forte, center, and Ryan Phillippe are shown in a scene from "MacGruber." (AP Photo/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Greg Peters)
/ AP

In this film publicity image released by Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Val Kilmer, left, and Will Forte are shown in a scene from "MacGruber." (AP Photo/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Greg Peters)— AP

In this film publicity image released by Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Val Kilmer, left, and Will Forte are shown in a scene from "MacGruber." (AP Photo/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures, Greg Peters)
/ AP

NEW YORK 
When "Saturday Night Live" characters journey from sketch to screen, they often appear lost away from their live studio habitat.

The first "SNL" movie, 1980's "The Blues Brothers," was also the best, as anyone who recalls the "two honkies dressed like Hasidic diamond merchants" can attest.

Since then, there's been "Wayne's World," but most of the adaptations have resulted in films like "Coneheads" (1993) and "It's Pat" (1994). Others like Molly Shannon's "Superstar" (1999) and Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell's "A Night at the Roxbury" (1998) have their cult defenders, but the big-screen "SNL" output has been checkered at best.

Sometimes, a character hasn't seemed quite deserving of movie-length attention (see Stuart Smalley, played by Al Franken, in 1995's "Stuart Saves His Family"). Other times, the adaptations have struggled to go beyond the original one-joke premise (see Tim Meadows' 2000 film "The Ladies' Man").

Enter "MacGruber."

Little about Will Forte's parody of the `80s adventure series "MacGyver" would seem befitting big-screen adaptation. Since the sketches began airing in January 2007, they've been remarkably similar: MacGruber gets distracted while assembling household items to try to deactivate a ticking time bomb. He and his assistants explode in a perfectly timed finale.

Forte, himself, never thought the sketches had any cinematic viability. Yet when he was approached about making "MacGruber" into a film, he couldn't turn it down.

The resulting movie, which opens Friday, is very much an "SNL" creation: It's produced by Lorne Michaels, directed by "SNL" writer Jorma Taccone, and written by Forte, Taccone and John Solomon, another writer on the show.

"Some people have already developed opinions one way or another about `SNL' movies," Forte said. "I hope they give it a chance."

One thing going for it: "MacGruber," the film, doesn't feel like a 90-minute sketch. Forte and company expanded the story into an `80s action film parody. MacGruber never leaves his red Miata without his car stereo, on which he blasts Toto and Mr. Mister.

"People seem to want to throw this into this `SNL' bag, which is great if they're talking about `Blues Brothers' or `Wayne's World,' but might not be great if they're talking about other movies," says Forte. "We never were looking at this as an `SNL' movie, we were just looking at this as a movie."

They kept "the character and the clothes and the attitude and nothing else," Forte says.

"From a very early point in the writing process, we realized that if we just went for 90 minutes doing the sketch over and over again, people would get sick of it after about 90 seconds," he says.

Though Forte, a former writer for the "Late Show with David Letterman" and "3rd Rock from the Sun," temporarily succeeded Will Ferrell in playing former President George W. Bush, his contributions since joining the show in 2002 have generally leaned away from the topical and toward the absurd.

One of his early characters was Tim Calhoun, an exceedingly soft-spoken and wooden politician. In one memorable sketch, he played the ponytailed lead singer of a morning talk show house band, leading them from soothing sounds to - after downing a bottle of whiskey - a primal jam, screaming, "Go Thunderbird Spirit!"